Private schools get more from the government than public schools, and that's seriously wrong.

By Peter Martin

Something is seriously wrong when private school students get more in government support than the government's own students. Just as it is when private superannuants get more in government support than the government's own pensioners.

Yet it's happening, and neither side of politics wants to talk about it.

That's by no means a complete list, and the schools I have mentioned are roughly matched for size and socio-economic status.

Right now, on average, Catholic and independent private schools get less per student than government schools, but if present trends continue they'll overtake government schools in four years. An analysis by a former president of the NSW Secondary Principals Council, Chris Bonnor, and education researcher Bernie Shepherd entitled Private School, Public Cost finds that by 2020 the typical Catholic student will receive $850 more than the typical government student, and the typical independent student $100 more.

It'll lend an entirely different meaning to the word "independent" and bury for good the argument that parents who pay extra to send their children to private schools are doing other taxpayers a favour.

So dependent are private schools already that 95 per cent get more in government grants than they spend on teachers' salaries. They either raise very little extra from parents (typically the case for Catholic schools) or raise a lot more and use it for facilities that are the envy of their public school neighbours.

It began quietly. For more than 100 years until the mid-1960s Australia treated private schools the same way as did other developed countries. It didn't fund them. Then prime minister Menzies broke the ice with grants for science labs and prime minister Whitlam with general grants linked to the achievement of targets. Prime Minister Howard turbocharged the process with a new formula that took no account of the money private schools got from other sources and a new kind of grant – for the establishment of new private schools.

In the space of a decade Australia gained an extra 127 private schools, some very small, and all entitled to establishment grants and ongoing public support.

So dependent are private schools already that 95 per cent get more in government grants than they spend on teachers’ salaries.

Julia Gillard's 2011 Gonski review found a mess. "When considered holistically, the current funding arrangements for schooling are unnecessarily complex, lack coherence and transparency, and involve a duplication of funding," it reported. It recommended instead a "colourblind" approach. Every student would be entitled to the same amount of money, adjusted for need.

In public schools it would all be provided by governments, state and federal. Private schools attended by students from poor socio-economic backgrounds would be told to find 10 per cent themselves. Private schools attended by students from good backgrounds would have to find 75 to 85 per cent.

The one big problem was that Gillard had decreed that "no school will lose a dollar". It made Gonski expensive.

But after initially causing mischief (his education spokesman Christopher Pyne labelled the idea "Conski") Tony Abbott promised a "unity ticket". He would honour Labor's agreements with the states for at least four years, even though they lasted for six years.

After his election it was quickly forgotten. The money was forthcoming, for four years only, but the requirement for the states to put in their share and divide it in accordance with Gonski formula was dropped.

Labor had made it hard for him, even if he had had the best will in the world. First it had insisted that no school be worse off, hugely inflating the Gonski's cost, and then, because it couldn't work out how to fund that cost, it pushed all but $3 billion of the $9.7 billion out into the final two years of the agreements, where it wouldn't show up in the budget's forward estimates.

Uncertain of what to do as those final two years approached, Malcolm Turnbull at first suggested the Commonwealth abandon schools funding, leaving it all to the states, which would raise their own income tax, except for private schools, which for some reason he would continue to fund. Then he threw them an extra bag of money to buy a few years more time.

As the election approaches, Labor is talking again about funding the full Gonski, the expensive one where private schools don't lose a dollar. I'd hoped for more, but then I've yet to meet a Labor MP whose children aren't in private schools.

The Coalition seems not to have a policy at all, at least not yet.

Unless one of the parties develops a policy that's actually thought through, we're likely to drift into the next election with private schools more heavily government-funded than government schools and no-one thinking its at all unusual.